Spalding RFC 52 Mellish 10
With a strong wind tending to blow down the pitch, winning the toss of the coin was vitally important for Spalding.
Earlier in the season Spalding had struggled to cope with the visitors’ style of play using their bulky but strong forwards.
Mellish kicked off and soon had Spalding under pressure within their twenty two. But moving the ball along their backs, lock George Douglas made a good interception, offloaded to fullback Charlie Beecham, who ran away from all the cover defence to score under the posts and with a simple conversion for fly half Will Ingleby,
Spalding were seven points up after three minutes.
This setback sparked the visitors into using their forward power with carries and pick and goes.
Spalding’s tackle defence stood firm with flankers Miguel Da Silva and Findlay Roy making telling tackles along with Lachlan Summers at inside centre.
However after nearly ten minutes of pressure and valiant defence on the try line Mellish drove over out wide for an unconverted try.
As the game progressed Ingleby was making good use of the windy conditions gaining many metres but getting over the try line was proving elusive.
However going into the second quarter Summers made a decisive break and with a good offload back inside to winger Alexander Creak to run in under the post and with a simple conversion the scoreboard was starting to tick over.
There was then a raft of changes of the subs’ bench bringing on the ‘Bomb Squad’ with forwards Zain Berg, Ash Anker and Luke Turner coming on.
The immediate impact was for Spalding’s scrum to become more dynamic and within a minute, with scrum ball secured, Jack Grundy burst forth, fended off a couple of tackles and was over on the left side, with Ingleby landing a good conversion.
Then Roy burst over the try line for a converted try for a 23-point lead, but the final minute of the first half saw Mellish’s forward play bring results, a try by the corner flag.
Now playing into the wind, Spalding had a big challenge, which they met head on.
With Mellish’s scrum nullified and lack of innovative back play, it would be Spalding who absorbed any pressure and counter attacked with speed and opportunity.
Grundy set the tone eight minutes into the second half with a powerful and forceful burst through the middle going in under the posts for a converted try.
Shortly afterwards prop Tom Parker was back on replacing Connor Broome and Humphreys replacing Roy.
Mellish finally were trying to run the ball through their backs but were cut down by outside centre Sam Christie or Creak and Gav Sharman on the wings.
Then the nail in the coffin was delivered by fullback Beecham using his pace and elusive running going outside then cutting back inside following a quickly taken tap penalty, catching Mellish off guard, for Spalding’s sixth try.
The last five minutes saw two further Spalding tries.
First was a lung bursting effort by scrum half Will Shields from 40 metres and with the last play of the game, Creak showed his pace to score and with Summers converting the referee blew for full time.
The teams above Spalding in the league won, so they remain in fifth position with three games left.
Team: Tom Parker, Elliot Humphreys, Connor Broome, George Douglas, Henry Hobson, Miguel Da Silva, Findlay Roy, Jack Grundy, Will shields, Willis Ingleby, Gav Sharman, Lachlan Summers, Sam Christie, Alexander Creak, Charlie Beecham.Subs: Zian Berg, Ash Anker, Luke Turner.
